More Than Fire
by Ducks - The Anti-Joss
Summary: Angel thinks about Buffy, and fire...


_More Than Fire_

by Ducks

I don't know _what_ this is, exactly... it's kind of a poem, but also kind of a story...

Rating? Um... well, the sex is pretty existential and abstract, but, um... I guess it's still sex, so...at least** R. ** No minors, please. Chances are, nobody will know what the heck I'm babbling about, anyway...

This is kind of like channeling Angel on acid. *shrug* Hey, I just write 'em...

Don't bother suing. Really not worth the $5.00 to file the papers. Joss doesn't care about 'em anymore, anyway.

So, on to the epistemological smutty mush.

Oh, and a little hint: I was thinking about _fire_...

* * *

This is more than fire... the way I burn whenever I am near her... more than searing flames that consume me, and turn me to ash... this fire does far worse damage to my animated corpse...

Watching her body grow rigid in recognition... her head slowly rises, and turns, and her soft golden curls fall gently into a halo around her smiling face.

She knows I am there. And I explode... like the first time, every time.

This is more than the fire in her eyes... Their misty green depths cut through me like rays... I catch a breath I don't need, and my hands clench into fists... My nails dig in until I can smell my own blood...

Even my blood smells of her... because hers flows through me.

When I remember how to move again, I draw closer. I can hear the demon screaming, raging inside of me. Even it... no, _especially _it... wants her. Starves for her... Even when I hated her, I needed her.

She is always happy to see me. Her body language begins to open up... her muscles relax, the tiniest bit... her arms open wide to me.

Her body's warmth envelopes me... more than fire, burning me... I am almost alive again, with the heat of her. She leans her lips to me... the current crackles in the air between us as our mouths find each other...

Like the first time... when I could do nothing, in that perfect moment, the moon's light glinting like a smile off her living eyes... I had to. I had no other choice but to take her in my arms...

The words don't matter. They never did... all the things we've said to one another... they mean nothing in the face of this unbreakable, burning bond between us.

I breathe her in... her aroma, warm and sweet, like cookies... she tastes like a shot of Tequila Rose...

She greets me with some words or another, but it hardly matters. The first thing I always tell her is, "I love you." Just so she never forgets I am thinking of her. "Ar thine..." 'On fire...', I tell her.

Her smile shifts, changes, a little. She knows what I mean... her warm fingers, her tiny, strong fingers, snake around mine. She knows this fire... she shares it with me.

Sometimes I'll let her talk me into dancing... some slow groove or another... I put my arms around her, and pull her close, like the first time...

Her heart pounds and her breath quickens as I hold her, and her mind doesn't even know yet how on fire she already is, for me...

Her body... her soul... her heart... all of her knows me immediately, before her brain even realizes I am here.

It's a defense mechanism, I think... She protects herself from me for a long time... she is alert, ready, looking for the first sign of some change in me, some warning, some signal of impending danger...

It takes a long time for her to relax into me... before she can trust me, again. After all these years, the Slayer still fears me. But Buffy has learned to let go...

"Leannan... gra... mo croi..." I whisper to her. For some reason, my mother tongue sooths her. It doesn't matter that the words are nonsense to her ears... the words have never mattered anyway.

It's more than fire... the hearth... more than sweet solace... more than shelter, more than warmth, safety or sustenance... The way I feel about her is my home... the only place I've ever belonged... the only place I've ever longed to return to.

I would gladly die the final death, just to see her smile at me that way, one more time.

And every night, she does. She knows... she understands this fire that nourishes and destroys... the flame that lights the Phoenix's wings and sets him into the flight of rebirth...

She softens and welcomes me... caresses my cheek or traces my lips... she already knows we are undone... destroyed... hurtling toward some far ahead certainty of our own tragic, once and for all, end. But the fire of eternity burns between us... perhaps, in the beyond, we will still burn... still ache...

It's so much more than light... each smooth inch of her that appears to my adoring eyes is another sun rising... making me miss the golden light of day less, each time I touch her.

She is much more than a vessel, haunted by me. Her soft sighs... her reverent chanting that reinvents my name...

She is more than the mold I pour my soul into... more than the reception of the original union that created the universe... Much more than primordial, this fire...it was before even the demons walked here... this call to one another was sung before the first living cell divided.

I love her... this woman... this human... this living being... this soul that is the other half of me...

Even when I am full of her, I still hunger... I still burn... hotter than bloodlust, and infinitely sweeter...

United, we are more than ourselves... we burn together...

Our fire is a beacon to draw all that is right, and cast away the dark shadows...When I fight beside her, I am faster... stronger... more alert. I am a better warrior from my years of fighting at the Slayer's side... the protégé of the greatest warrior who ever lived.

She moves like a cat, with fists of iron. She crushes her opponent... but more often than not, she outwits it, first...

When the battle is done, and her heart slows again, she looks into my eyes. I know she feels the fire, too. Some nights... nights with endless stars and crazy moons... some times I'll just take her, there, in the grass, like an animal claiming its mate...and she responds in kind, for her body immediately recognizes this dance...

We share everything... our fears, our dreams, our pain... There are no more secrets between us.

Sometimes we just lie in bed, side by side, and look up at the stars through the ceiling.

We just lie there and burn.

More than fire... and longer than fire has been, there has been This.

Gra... love.

[_More Ducks' Fanfic_][1]

[slayinsage@buffymail.com][2]

   [1]: http://fly.to/ducksfanfic/
   [2]: mailto:slayinsage@buffymail.com



End file.
